Posted March 31, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Green for Danger, Christianna Brand
Green for Danger is one of those classic crime novels that definitely doesn’t feel cosy. That’s not just because it’s set during the Second World War — writers were perfectly capable of writing normality-restoring, comforting crime fiction then; in fact, it was a great time for it. The war setting doesn’t help, though, because the unease creeps around the story: consider the fact that all the doctors have morphine to take in case they should get buried alive during a bombing.
Mostly, though, it’s the mystery itself that’s unsettling. The potential culprits are all an inner circle, a limited group, and you watch their insecurities and their foibles playing out as you suspect each in turn. Could it be this one, or that one? Could it be because of a dark past, a horrible secret? Why is one’s voice recognised by various patients? Was there something suspicious about that previous event? And there’s the detective, putting pressure on them all to make them confess…
It all ends up being very uncomfortable, because it’s a group of friends, and nobody wants to believe anyone else has done it. There’s a web of jealousies and friendships between them that doesn’t stop them wanting the best for each other — but someone is a killer.
Brand’s a good writer, but it isn’t what I typically look for when I pick up a British Library Crime Classic.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, Christianna Brand, crime, mystery
Posted March 4, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Crook O’ Lune, E.C.R. Lorac
Crook O’ Lune is very typical of E.C.R. Lorac’s books: maybe slower than some, but using a strong sense of place to give the story atmosphere, and to create a mystery that fits into the setting, the lie of the land, the kind of people. It’s perhaps even better at that because Lorac based it on a real place, and even on her own house: you can feel the love for the house, the land, the way of life, in all the characters.
Of course, it’s a little idealised, and rather anti-urban in sentiment — even people who come from outside are by and large calmed by the land, connected to it all of a sudden, in a way that doesn’t ring so true to me (or maybe it’s just the changing times, and everybody was closer to the land then, and more able to be absorbed back into a rural community).
The mystery in this one takes a long time to get going, but it’s all necessary set-dressing, and it’s all relevant. I didn’t ‘catch’ the killer ahead of time, this time: I suspected someone else, based on details that… I’m not sure whether they were intended as red herrings or just part of the set-dressing. But it all makes sense in execution, and despite some of the sordid deeds and the sense of increasing hurry about figuring out what happened, it was a very relaxing read — you can rely on Lorac for that!
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, E.C.R. Lorac, mystery
Posted February 16, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Mysterious Mr. Badman, W.F. Harvey
The Mysterious Mr. Badman is a bit unusual, featuring an amateur detective who is usually a carpet manufacturer (as the introduction from the series’ editor says, surely the only amateur detective to have that profession), and who is a kind older man, though backed up by a young nephew and a young woman who is involved in the case. Though it’s billed as a “bibliomystery”, honestly the book doesn’t play a huge part. It might as well be a second-hand suitcase or jacket, for all the book itself matters.
All the same, I found it fun: it was a quick read, and Athelstan Digby and Jim are rather sweet and careful in trying to sort things out and avoid scandal. Private justice, of course, but Digby in particular does his best not to cause lasting harm (padding a poker, for example, so as to knock someone out rather than crack their head open, even when he’s being imprisoned).
I wouldn’t say it particularly stands out among all the British Library Crime Classics, but it was exactly what I want from this series: a classic mystery, where all is resolved at the end, and the world goes back to normal.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, mystery, W.F. Harvey
Posted February 12, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Death of an Author, E.C.R. Lorac
Death of an Author is another really enjoyable mystery from E.C.R. Lorac — one slyly self-referential, given the stuff about it being impossible for a female author to write such a mystery, and an outlier as well, because it doesn’t feature her usual series detective. There’s also rather less of an “atmosphere”, though she does describe a couple of the locations very vividly.
The reason I’m losing my head and giving it five stars is that I found the mystery so genuinely intriguing to turn over in my mind. Often when I read mystery novels, I just wait for the author to lead me to the clues, pretty much ever since Sayers and that cheat of withholding the flake white clue (yes, I know, I do bang on about that). I don’t trust authors to give the clues, and also I cynically know how the twists and turns of a mystery novel go. But I didn’t anticipate every step of this one, and I didn’t spoiler myself for the end either: I wanted the full experience, and to give the puzzle a try myself.
In the end, I got there with the solution, though some things happened that I didn’t quite believe (and there was a bit that relied extremely heavily on luck), and I really enjoyed the process of getting there. Lorac was a good writer, and her wry wit in playing with the questions of authorship here offered some extra piquancy. (I wonder how people took it when they thought she was a guy, thanks to her pen-name?)
Rating: 5/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, E.C.R. Lorac, mystery
Posted February 9, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Death on the Down Beat, Sebastian Farr
Death on the Down Beat was a bit of a surprise to me, to be honest. I hadn’t fully clocked the format: it’s an epistolary novel, based on the detective writing letters (and sending dossiers) home to his wife. (Amusingly, it’s very careful to make this feel a little more plausible, by the husband noting multiple times that he shouldn’t be doing this, but commenting on how helpful it is and asking his wife to file things for him in the usual way.) I knew that some extracts of a musical score were included — and an important clue — but not about the letters, and I think it helped this book feel a little different, even if the detective could barely be told apart from a host of other classic mystery detectives.
The letter format does mean that the reader is held at a bit of a distance from any action, and doesn’t get to know the characters directly. The suspects thus rather blur into each other, which makes it difficult to have any real suspicions — I went off on a completely wrong track, though I wasn’t really wrong about the motive. So that’s my main critique here: there’s a lot of superfluous stuff and a lot of suspects, and the information we need is rather camouflaged by all of that.
Which makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy it, when I definitely did: I think this format is a neat idea, and I enjoyed the fact that the detection process was complemented by an understanding of the music. Not that I did understand the music, but it was explained well enough to get the point, and like Sayers’ tube of flake white in Five Red Herrings, I bet a little prior knowledge really illuminates things, and that’s kinda neat too. (Maybe it’s not quite as… obscuring as the flake white that Sayers wouldn’t name, though.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, mystery, Sebastian Farr
Posted January 24, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Hexbreaker, Jordan L. Hawk
Tom is a copper, a decent one who doesn’t take bribes and keeps his neighbourhood safe. He’s hiding a past of violence and betrayal, something he walked away from for everyone’s safety. Cicero is a familiar, a shapeshifter, who works with the local magical police for protection, but hasn’t yet agreed to bond with a witch. They’re thrown together to solve two murders — which stir up horrifying echoes for both of them, of pasts they’ve tried to put behind them — and at first it seems like they’re oil and water. Cicero constantly makes assumptions about Tom based on his job and appearance, but slowly, of course, sparks start to fly.
There is of course a wrenching part of the romance (as so often) where the secrets Tom is keeping come back to haunt him, leaving Cicero feeling lied to and abandoned. Obviously there were so many opportunities to do better and to communicate with Cicero — but at least it seems to make sense that he doesn’t. He doesn’t realise his past is relevant to the case, and he’s committed to a better future, one with Cicero in it; the smart thing would be to ‘fess up, of course, but… that’s difficult, and didn’t seem important. It makes sense.
A lot of people mention not loving this book as much as the Widdershins books, but I disagree. That’s partly down to my pet peeves: Whyborne’s obsessive lack of self-esteem over the course of several books drives me nuts, and the lack of communication between him and Griffin comes back again and again and again. For that reason, this clicked better for me (which is not to say that I find nothing to enjoy in the Widdershins books).
There are some gruesome bits of this story, just as a warning. There’s also some period typical homophobia, though not amongst the main characters or anyone who matters. I’m looking forward to glimpsing Cicero and Tom in the stories of the others…
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Jordan L. Hawk, mystery, queer fiction, romance, SF/F
Posted January 7, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Murder at the Theatre Royale, Ada Moncrieff
Murder at the Theatre Royale was just as much fun as I’d hoped after reading Murder Most Festive. It’s not related to the first book at all, except in that it’s set at Christmas, and the narrative positively flies by — even more so than Murder Most Festive, I’d say. I’m a little disappointed there’s nothing else by Ada Moncrieff for me to inhale, because I had a lot of fun.
The main character of this one is more appealing than Murder Most Festive, through her determined industry at an actual paying job (rather than living off an estate) and her enthusiasm for her work. Daphne King is an agony aunt for a newspaper, but she wants to branch out and do more, her appetite whetted by a little mystery she solved involving a kidnapped person writing in to her column in code. Given the opportunity to do a little work for the culture section, she jumps at it, and finds herself embroiled in the mystery of the murder of an aging actor.
Veronica, who over time becomes Daphne’s Watson, is pretty cool too — not as sharp as Daphne, but a working woman trying hard to make her way, and a good companion for a little mystery-solving adventure…
I didn’t, in this case, figure out the culprit or the true motive for a while; I had my eye on a different character, because they seemed so unlikely at first (and the unlikely answer is often true). I should’ve thought more about the information I was being given about another character!
All in all, really enjoyable.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: Ada Moncrieff, book reviews, books, crime, mystery
Posted January 4, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Headed for a Hearse, Jonathan Latimer
A solid not-for-me, here. It shows its age in the attitudes to women and people of colour, and in the open portrayal of the police as being unashamedly violent, arbitrary, and prone to going around the law to get a conviction.
I feel weird about the one-star rating, given I finished it and found it absorbing enough… but would I have picked it up at all if I hadn’t already owned it, from an “advent calendar” of Golden Age crime fiction books? No, probably not. As usual, I’m rating based on my enjoyment, not the literary merit I think the book has — though that’s small enough in this case, too.
One thing that was portrayed well was the attitudes of the men on Death Row. Their reactions and interactions were interesting, their fear well-drawn, even as they themselves were still unpleasant. The horror of their situation is clear, even if their actions were reprehensible.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Jonathan Latimer, mystery
Posted January 1, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Murder Most Festive, Ada Moncrieff
I found Murder Most Festive a really enjoyable quick read — maybe not something I’d come back to, but definitely a fun way to while away the last day of the year. In the best Christmas mystery tradition, most of the characters aren’t great people, the victim included, and the flawed nature of family is well on display… but there are a few highlights, like Lady Westbury (far from perfect, but kind, and brave at a particular crucial moment) and Hugh Gaveston. Lydia, too, has an interesting development, finally realising that she’s been shutting her eyes to something she should act upon, and goes ahead.
I don’t agree with people who criticise mysteries for the killer being obvious early on; I chose a character to suspect early on, and I was quite right too — in part just because I’ve read a lot of mysteries, and seen a lot of the tricks in the book, and I keep my eyes open and remember that everything is potentially significant and it’s often the most unexpected character, the one with no apparent motive, who has done the deed.
But a mystery isn’t all about the whodunnit, anyway: it’s also about the howdunnit and the whydunnit, and sometimes the when and even wheredunnit. (Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body?, for example, is all of those things!) And even after all that, sometimes it’s just the howdiscoverit and howtoproveit — and even after that, there’s just the characters and how they behave to each other, how they react to being under suspicion, etc.
All this to say: I don’t think Murder Most Festive is the best mystery novel I’ve ever read, or a favourite that’s likely to stick with me, and it didn’t have me in great suspense… but it was entertaining, and sometimes that’s all we need to ask of a book.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: Ada Moncrieff, book reviews, books, crime, mystery
Posted May 30, 2022 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Guardian Spirits, Jordan L. Hawk
Guardian Spirits wraps up the plot arc from the first two books beautifully, answering questions from both books and bringing our protagonists to a good place in the process. Of course, given the context, it involves dragging them through a bad place first — though this is primarily due to the outside circumstances, rather than the relationship between them. After finally communicating with each other in the second book, Henry and Vincent are ready to be supportive of each other, and to face pressure without crumbling.
We get a couple of new characters, including a love interest for Lizzie, which is cool. I find myself longing for more of Jo, though!
While I figured things out before the characters did, their blindnesses made sense and didn’t feel frustrating… and like Jordan L. Hawk often has characters communicating badly, with crises leaning on misunderstandings, that was much less the case here. (It’s a pet dislike of mine.) So that was nice too.
Overall, enjoyable end to a trilogy, or a stepping-off point for a longer series. I don’t know if Hawk is planning to write more or not, but if not, I’m okay with that.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Jordan L. Hawk, mystery, romance, SF/F
